RTL Lab Reflection Week 4

This week, we were tasked with making a "substitute worthy" lesson plan on a standard that we randomly selected. After we created our plans, we were met with a surprise when we entered our lab. Instead of teaching our own lesson, we had to swap with one of our classmates and teach their lesson instead!

Excitement 

I had a lot of participating in this lab. It was fun to see the differences and similarities in the lesson plans that were written. It was also fun to see if you could think on your feet and really bring the content to life even though we didn't write the lesson plan we were teaching from.

Gems & Opps

For my gems, I think I did a good job with maintaining enthusiasm during the lesson. I also think I did a good job of reprimanding students that got out of hand during the lesson. For my opps, I think if I had had more time to review the lesson before I taught it, I wouldn't have needed to rely so heavily on reading the lesson plan I was given.

Final Thoughts

Over-all I think this lab was very successful and very fun! Stay tuned for my next teaching lab reflection!

Is Our Toolbox Full?

Is our toolbox full?

Differentiated Instruction

This type of instruction refers to considering and selecting from a variety of instructional approaches to meet the different needs of every student. Differentiated instruction is Not individualized instruction rather, it is a way to appeal to multiple intelligences.

Three Stages of Differentiated Instruction

Readiness- refers to the students' starting point for learning the concept being studied.

Student interests- attention to students' interests enhances the relevancy of content to learning by linking the content to students' experience and enthusiasm.

Learning preferences- these are the many different ways in which learners prefer to acquire, process and work through information.

How I Will Implement Differentiated Instruction

I really like the concept of differentiated instruction as I believe no two learners are alike. Some strategies I plan to use during student teaching are:

1. Provide students a quiz to see what their intelligences are and use that information to formulate a plan of action.

2. Use a variety of e-moments to engage multiple intelligences.

3. Use group work activities.

4. Be flexible during planning to accommodate different learning strategies.

Additional Resource

https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/examples-of-differentiated-instruction/

Making the Grade

How do we assess and evaluate?

This week, we were tasked with reading articles that tackled the importance of assessments, evaluations, and grading scales.

Grading Exceptional Learners

The first article I found interesting gave advice on how to assess exceptional learners. The article made some very valid points on what would be considered "fair" vs. "accurate" grading. Is it best to doc a student points because they have a learning disability? Is it best to just pass them even though the grade given is not reflective of the student's performance? The article stated that there are two characteristics needed for a grading system to be both accurate and fair. The first one was to set clearly articulated standards for student learning. The second one was to distinguish three types of learning criteria which are product criteria, process criteria, and progress criteria. While this may seem very complex to implement as a grading system, it is easier in the long-run to use the three types of criteria to assign a grade than it is to try and lump them all together. I plan on using the three types of criteria when I student teach to evaluate students. I find that this approach makes more sense to me than having an unorganized approach to grading.

Creating Rubrics

The second article that I found interesting discussed elements of effective rubrics and how to create your own. There are two types of rubrics, generic and task oriented. Within these two categories there are two subcategories, analytic and holistic. The article went on to list the steps to take in order to create your own rubric. I plan to take this information and use it to create a rubric for my unit assessment on agriculture ecology.

Finding Clarity

I found an outside source by Edutopia.org that shared nine questions to guide you when looking for clarity in assessment. I found this article quite interesting because I was able to think back on past experiences where I was confused with a teacher's grading system. It can be extremely frustrating if clear instructions and standards are not given at the beginning of a course or class. As I continue to plan out my grading system, I will keep this article in mind to ensure I remember the importance of clarity when grading.

Key Take-Aways

• Clarity is the number one priority to any grading system
• Identify the purpose of your rubric before constructing it
• Remember process, product, and progress criteria for fair and accurate grading

RTL Lab Week 4

This week we were tasked with demonstrating a type of problem to the rest of our peers for them to work through. I chose to present an effect-cause problem on the topic of small gas engines. I gave the students a scenario where a customer brought in a snow blower that was not running properly. Students then used white boards to write out their hypotheses as to what the cause was for the snow blower to run incorrectly. We then discussed the different hypotheses to see which was the most plausible cause. I thought that my idea worked really well and was easy for my peers to work through. Some things I would change for the future would be to pair students up to work more efficiently and add on another scenario instead of just working through one problem. I also want to ensure that I provide clear instructions when I present the scenario and through the problem solving approach.